


of telekinesis and chocolate wafers

by cricketcheesecake



Category: Chronicle (2012)
Genre: (tasteful though), Andrew escapes, College, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, NYU - Freeform, Smut, and andrew deserved so much better!, and so did steve!, character rumination, i'm just sappy!, matt too ig but he didn't die so, one of those vignette romances i always write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 14:21:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19152796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricketcheesecake/pseuds/cricketcheesecake
Summary: These three things don't happen: 1) Steve doesn't die, 2) Andrew doesn't kill anyone, 3) Matt doesn't kill his cousin.These three things happen instead: 1) Andrew gets accepted into NYU's Maurice Kanbar Film Institute, 2) He lucks out on getting a room without a roommate, 3) He gets a friend.





	of telekinesis and chocolate wafers

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So I rewatched Chronicle like a week ago, and I totally forgot how good this movie was. Andrew's arc really upset me, even though it really told a compelling story about the dangers of power and the way abuse can damage someone. But I prefer happy endings, so I wrote my own! 
> 
> (FYI: I agree with the HC that Andrew had a crush on Steve as well as Monica in Chronicle. I didn't pair him with Steve because I wanted to tell this story instead, but yes. It's pride month baby, and bi people exist! Basically everyone in my fics are bi.)

> **September 3rd — 1:43 p.m.**

 

_ I’ve left him behind.  _

 

Andrew Detmer is sitting in an NYU cafe, spine curled over his camera, as he tries to breathe through his nose and not have a panic attack. People move around him in a sea of colors and shapes and skin tones, chatting about their first day of classes tomorrow and what type of coffee they’re going order. His left leg is bouncing up and down nervously, hitting the underside of the table and starting to bruise his knee. 

 

It feels good. 

 

The air feels different here, in New York City. Thicker, spicier, and he can’t seem to get enough of it, no matter how hard he tries. His lungs are collapsing around him, inside him, and he can’t get his damn camera to stop glitching and he can’t find his _fucking_ dorm room and he can’t use his powers without his nose bleeding everywhere and—his mom’s grave is thousands of miles away. 

 

_I’ve left him behind_ , he thinks, forcing his eyes open. _I’m not in his house anymore._

 

Andrew glances up from fiddling with his camera, looking around at the cafe. It is stuffed, overflowing with freshman who, like him, are here to start fresh. He looks back down at his lap, trying to ignore the frayed edges of his hoodie and the worn spots in his jeans. 

 

“Is this seat taken?”  


 

Fuck. He jerks his head up to a girl leaning over him, her hand lying expectantly over the back of the chair opposite his. Blinking, he shakes his head. 

 

She smiles. The girl, that is. Crinkles her eyes as her face breaks into a toothy grin that really feels like an overreaction, but he’s distracted by the way the scrunching of her nose pushes herglasses up, and how her eyes are dark like coffee. 

 

She settles in the chair, dropping her backpack down on the ground with a heavy thud and bracing her elbows on the table. When she cocks her head to the side, blinking at him expectantly, the bun on top of her head flops around, ginger curls falling out haphazardly.

 

“Oh, uh, w-what was that?” He stutters out, shifting in his seat. 

 

She sips her coffee. “I asked you if you were a freshman.”

 

“Yeah,” he says. _This is uncomfortable_. “Are you?”

 

“I am.” She straightens her spine. “I’m a freshman, too. I’m in the Scoring for Film & Multimedia program, and I saw you had that camera in your lap, so I was wondering if you were in a film program, too?”

 

* * *

**1:48 p.m.**

 

When she asks him that, it seemed to pull a small smile out from some foreign part of his body. His eyes stay downcast, which Frannie thinks is kind of odd, but she’s also into it. Really into it. 

 

She introduces herself, he introduces himself, and the line of his shoulders gets less and less tense as they bounce words back and forth like a tennis match. He takes his coffee black; she bites her lip; his unassuming smile makes her heart beat slightly louder. 

 

“Where are you from?” she asks, watching his long fingers wander up to straighten his hair. 

 

“Seattle.”

 

“Damn, that’s far.”

 

“That was the point.”

 

* * *

**September 15th — 5:15 p.m.**

 

Somewhere between when she first meets Andrew and when she shows up at his dorm door unannounced, Frannie decides he isn’t some conquest. Not that she has a lot of conquests, really, but she _definitely_ has a thing for scrawny film boys, and she isn’t afraid to fool around with some hottie who catches her eye. 

 

But Andrew is different. She hasn't been able to get him out of her damn head, so that’s how she ends up shoving her way inside his dorm with a box of chocolate wafers during the second week of classes. 

 

She brandishes the box as she shimmies past him, trying to appear nonchalant as she flashes him a smile. “Care for an evening snack from a semi-familiar face? I bought these yesterday, and they’re absolutely delicious.”

 

Andrew laughs, awkwardly, reaching up to rub at his neck. His eyes are trained to the floor, but he's smiling. “You look me up in the phone book?”

 

A shiver goes up her spine; she winks at him to cover it up. “We sat next to each other during orientation. Or did you forget already? We both live in this hall, I spotted your dorm number on your info sheet.”

 

“That’s creepy,” he says, offhand, as he accepts the box of wafers. “But thanks.” He pauses. “I like chocolate.”

 

_Oh shit, is he right? Am I being totally creepy right now?_ Frannie tugs at her shirt collar. She hadn’t really thought it through, but people do this at college, right? It’s not like it’s late, and she didn’t wait too long after first meeting him. She would have tried sitting next to him during their shared morning lecture, but he always sits at the very back, and her eyesight puts that shit out of the question.

 

She glances around the small single dorm, devoid of posters or family photos, and tries not to frown. His desk chair squeaks under her weight, and he sits down on the very edge of his bed opposite her, cradling the wafer box gently in his hands. 

 

“How’s New York treating you so far?” She asks.

 

He shifts. “I was looking to start fresh, so. It’s treating me perfectly fine.”

 

Frannie nods, watching him fiddle with the box edge as she leans back against the chair spine. _I couldn’t imagine starting fresh._  She’s firmly anchored, secured tightly in this city, in this culture, in this community. 

 

That is her superpower. 

 

“Where are you from?” He asks, out of nowhere, like he suddenly realized it was rude to not ask questions in return. 

 

“Here,” she says, trying to cross her legs without looking too sexual. _This isn’t a booty call, Frannie, it’s 5 p.m. on a Wednesday._ “Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Have you ever been there?”

 

His head shakes, but he’s got a slightly vacant expression on, like he’s somewhere else entirely. 

 

She reaches across the two feet separating them to playfully shove his shoulder, gearing up to rib him about being one of those NYU students who only stays in Manhattan. But as soon as she comes toward him, and her fingertips press against bone, he startles, and _Oh shit, I am overstepping fifteen different invisible boundaries._

 

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” she starts, “I just came into your dorm without asking, and then — ”

 

At the same time, his eyes widen and he rushes, “Fuck, shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to jump—”

 

A beat of silence.

 

They both let out laughs, uncertainly. She cocks her head, reaching up to tug at a stray curl. She’s sure that her cheeks match her hair at this point. “Still, I’ll text next time before I drop in with a bunch of bodega wafers.”

 

He looks down at the floor again ( _what’s so interesting down there, huh?_ ), but she still catches the shy smile teasing his lips upwards. “Y-yeah.” A pause, accompanied with one of his thin hands reaching out towards her. “Should I put my number in your phone?”

 

* * *

**November 3rd — 2:13 p.m.**

 

Their freshman year is filled with late-night Thai food, experimental movies at the Angelika Film Center, and treading into dangerous territory. 

 

Andrew starts falling in love with Frannie Mertz the first day they meet, and he finally admits it to himself exactly two months later. They’re sitting in Central Park, on an unusually warm autumn day, with the sun shining like it never did in Seattle. He’s recording her practicing her violin, and she occasionally grins at him and reaches out to tap the top of his camera with her bow. 

 

Frannie looks gorgeous in the late afternoon light, amongst all the other people sunbathing and all the dogs running around. Carrot-colored hair that's loose and frizzy, large brown eyes that seem to see through flesh, muscle and bone, right through to the inner chambers of his cardiovascular system. Her calloused hands, reaching out to give him a granola bar, that he thinks about almost constantly. Her wardrobe, filled with soft things: worn leggings, large turtlenecks in crazy patterns, draping cardigans and swishing scarves made out of silk and satin that he imagines would feel so cool and smooth against his fingertips.

 

_ Soft. Comfortable. Easy. _

 

It is so damn easy to forget the past, with his dad and Monica and all the fucking bullies. It's easy to forget the present, where Frannie calls him her best friend and he’s hiding a terrifying, monolithic secret inside him. 

 

He hasn’t picked up Steve and Matt’s calls since his plane landed in JFK. Steve had accepted a sports scholarship at the University of Washington, and Matt is taking a gap year to backpack through Nepal; Andrew can’t stomach the thought of calling them back because hearing their voices reminds him of Seattle, of his powers, and what he almost did with them.

 

_ I almost killed Steve.  _

 

_ I almost killed my father. _

 

_ I wish I had killed my father.  _

 

_It’s easy with her now_ , he thinks, watching Frannie tune the violin. _It’s easy because she doesn’t know_. 

 

* * *

**9:50 p.m.**

 

Andrew has been acting weird since the little picnic in Central Park, and frankly, Frannie doesn’t fucking like it. It reminds her of how he acted when they had first met: wary, reserved, waiting for a nauseous punchline. 

 

They have tickets to an anniversary viewing of the first "Twilight", and the walk from his dorm down to the hall’s entrance onto East 10th St. is oddly tense. Frannie wracks her brain, trying to remember everything she said throughout the day that could have upset him, while Andrew walks silent next to her. Hands in his pockets, hoodie pulled up over his head. She fiddles with the hem of her leopard coat.

 

“Twilight is such an underrated film,” she hopes to rile him up, lightly bumping her shoulder against his. 

 

He just hums. 

 

Frannie looks down at his long legs keeping pace with her, the threadbare knees and his patched Walmart sneakers. “Honestly, I really like Catherine Hardwicke as a director. I think you’ll like her, too. Lots of blue tones.”

 

For hundredth time, Frannie longs to reach into his pocket, fish out his hand and hold it. To weave their fingers together, and perhaps bring them up to her mouth so she could kiss his knuckles. _But not yet_. She’s taking this slow because Andrew is, for some unexplainable reason, _different_. 

 

The streets of Manhattan aren't that busy at this time of night, and the concrete is still slick from the cold rain earlier. They’re supposed to be at the theater by 10 p.m., and considering it’s ten minutes till, they’re more than a little late. She speeds up until she’s at least three yards ahead of him. 

 

_I’ll ask Andrew what’s bothering him after the movie gets out_ , Frannie resolves. 

 

She fishes her phone out of her coat pocket, tapping the screen to see how late they were going to be, and that’s all it takes for her to start on the crosswalk while the light is still red. 

 

A sleek black car enters the peripheral of her vision like mirage, speeding towards her with enough time for her to think _I hope Andrew isn’t witnessing thi_ s, but not enough time to try to save herself. 

 

Suddenly, she feels her back hit the concrete. _Hard_. A gasp rips out of her, internal organs disoriented inside of her because, as she quickly sits up, she is no longer in the street. 

 

In fact, she’s about 10 feet away from the crosswalk, sitting on her ass by a city mailbox and still gasping for breath. 

 

Her head jerks to the left, where Andrew is standing by the curb, his eyes wide and nose dripping blood as it mixes with the water on his face. 

 

Dimly, she thinks, _Shit. It just started raining again_. 

* * *

 

**9:59 p.m.**

 

Andrew doesn’t even think. 

 

Like something out of his worst nightmare, he sees Frannie check her phone and, without looking, step out into oncoming traffic. He sees the black car speeding toward her, and he sees her look up and realize what she’s done. 

 

If he didn’t do anything, he knows what he would see. A blood-soaked leopard coat, broken bones, wet hair against the black pavement.

 

So, he does the first thing he can. He throws out his hand and grabs a hold of her with his powers, like he used to do with light bulbs and other fragile things. He feels it wrap around her body, and he yanks back, pulling her backwards as the car surges right where she was just standing. 

 

And now, he’s standing in the street, hoping no one was paying any attention, watching her lie on the sidewalk as she gasps for air and the rain begins to fall down on them both. 

 

She sits up, her eyes wide and wild, and he feels like crying. He wants to tell her that _No, I was right behind you the whole time_ , and, _No, I was close to you, and I pulled you out of the street with my arms_ , but she’s not an idiot, and neither is he. She knows he was far behind her, by the subway entrance, when she walked into the street. And even if he wasn’t, there’s no way he could have thrown her back 10 feet with his nonexistent muscles. 

 

His feet carry him over to her, and he pulls her up to her feet. She stands, wobbly, looking at him with so many questions on her lips that he can physically see them. 

 

So, he does what has always kept him alive in the past. 

 

He runs. 

 

* * *

 

**3:30 a.m.**

 

_ Andrew Detmer is different.  _

 

Frannie lies, tenderly, on her back, and tries to figure out what happened tonight by staring at her blank ceiling. In the other bed, her roommate lets out a loud snore. 

 

_I almost died tonight_ , Frannie thinks, _and there’s no logical way that Andrew could have saved me._

 

But he did. 

 

She thinks back to the way she felt on the street. Like something large, and constricting, had wrapped around her entire chest like an octopus, pulling her back like she weighed nothing. She's 170 pounds, so definitely not nothing. And Andrew doesn’t exactly work out. 

 

But her mind isn’t lying to her. It never has before. Andrew was definitely way behind her, too far to have gotten to her even if he had ran. 

 

She thinks first of X-Men, and discards the thought. Then, Carrie, which doesn’t sit right, either. Finally, she settles onto the memory of Roald Dahl’s Matilda, and that settles it. 

 

She slips out of her bed and puts on a pair of slippers. Her roommate could sleep through a hurricane, so she doesn’t bother being quiet as she grabs a packet of chocolate wafers from her desk and shuts the door behind her. 

 

And within a matter of minutes, she’s knocking on Andrew’s door with both a snack and a question. 

 

He opens on the sixth knock, and she blinks. He’s slouched, paler than usual and with bags under his eyes. She can see his jaw clenched, knuckles white as he clutches the door frame, with eyes that refuse to look at her. Her slippers shuffle on the little NYU doormat. 

 

“Andrew,” she begins, voice rough from the lack of sleep, “what happened out there? And whatever you say, I will believe you.”

 

He doesn’t even pause when he says, “I’m telekinetic.”

 

She can’t resist blinking again. 

 

Silence. 

 

She walks past him inside his dorm, feeling his tense body against her for a moment. She has to fight off a shiver. Dropping the waivers on his desk, she turns to face him. 

 

He’s kept the door open, but he’s shifted towards her, hesitantly. His eyes are flicking across her face now, and she watches him watch her. She absorbs, for what feels like the first time, the tragedy in his expression, the grim set to his mouth, the scars bordering his eye sockets and along his nose bridge that speak to countless black eyes and broken cartilage all through his childhood. 

 

She says, “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

**3:40 a.m.**

 

In the span of ten minutes, Frannie shows up at his door, listens to him tell her he can move shit with his mind, walks into his dorm and says, “Okay.”

 

_ Okay.  _

 

And now they’re standing in the middle of the room, in the near darkness, with the city lights hazy outside his window. He hadn’t even bothered changing out from his clothes, so he’s still slightly damp. Frannie is wearing a pair of sweatpants and a pink t-shirt three sizes too big, eyes far too earnest for comfort. 

 

Slowly, she starts to walk toward him, and he expects her to do something. Say he’s lying, or toquit playing around, or maybe even slap him. She _did_ almost die earlier, after all. But instead, she reaches up, at a snail’s pace, to cup his jaw. He closes his eyes because the alternative is continuing to look at the freckles on her forehead, and he can’t do that right now. Not tonight. 

 

“Can I kiss you?” She whispers. 

 

He thinks of the last time someone kissed him. “Can you?”

 

He feels her breath huff out on a laugh, and realizes it sounded like he was joking. 

 

_But seriously, can you?_ He thinks. _Can you stomach it? Why would you want to kiss m—_

 

He feels her lips against his, and his stomach lurches.

 

Her arms wrap around his neck, her lips open under his, and her waist slides across his palms against better judgement. 

 

Relief filters through him, starting in his ribs and moving inwards and upwards into all the chambers of his heart. She holds him tight, moving her lips and letting him follow her lead; _she’s kissed a lot of people_ , he thinks, without jealousy. _She’s kissing me now_. Her mouth and lips taste like nothing in particular, maybe faintly like rose lip balm, and he thinks he could get addicted to this. 

 

He thinks, _I’m so glad I survived high school._

 

_She knows._ Frannie’s warm fingers slide under the hem of his shirt. _And she doesn’t care._

 

* * *

 

** December 22  — 8 :30pm **

 

It’s the last day of finals, everyone else is gone from campus, and she has Andrew all to herself.

 

He’s breathing heavily into her mouth, his left leg wrapped around her waist. Frannie thinks this is probably the most she’s ever wanted another person.

 

Like, she thought she wanted Ernest Mercado right before 11th grade formal in the back seat of his 2001 Honda Civic, and she _really_ thought she wanted Orla Macaby after a long study session in Orla’s fairy-themed bedroom. And, of course, she’d gotten them. But _this._

 

_ This is a whole new level of want.  _

 

“Is this okay?” She asks against Andrew’s neck, feeling his pulse going rabbit-fast against the tender insides of her lip as she presses her full weight against him.

 

“Frannie,” he huffs, “It’s fine.”

 

“It’s important for me to check in,” she says, pressing a kiss to his collarbone. “So humor me.”

 

“Frannie.” She feels an insistent hand on her lower back, and glances up at him. “I just—” He pauses with a frown. “When I told you about that thing with Monica, I didn’t—I’m not—”

 

She waits for him to finish, but when he doesn’t, she reaches up to brush his sweaty bangs back and off his face. She says, “I’m not asking so I can avoid getting puked on.” He looks up at the dorm ceiling, but she continues, “Although we should definitely communicate that if need be. I’m asking if what I’m doing feels good because I want _you_ to feel good.”

 

To prove her point, she skims her hands down to toy with the hem of his shirt, flicking her eyes back up to his face. When he nods, still not looking away from the ceiling, she slides it up to reveal his chest and stomach. Her tongue slides along the ridge of one rib, and he groans above her. She spreads her palms across his hips, feeling the soft skin and the raised bumps of faded schoolyard scars as she kisses her way down his sternum and toward his fly.

 

“I’m going to take these off,” she whispers, tugging at his jeans and undoing the top button. 

 

His hand clutches the bedspread next to her head. “Okay.”

 

Once she gets them off, his boxers are the only thing left; she tugs at them once, and he nods immediately. “Good boy,” she teases, but her voice comes out more honeyed than she’d anticipated. The way he moans at the praise make her insides tighten.

 

She leans over him, boxers discarded, and keeps her eyes on him as she lowers her mouth. She’d asked, but his body still jolts in full-body shock as she licks him and slides her lips around him. He curls slightly around her head, and she’s vaguely aware of the fairy lights going haywire above the bed. 

 

One of her hands goes up to press into his stomach, grounding him, and the other comes up to stroke as she mouths at the tip of his cock. She contemplates pausing to teasingly ask him if he’s okay, but the sight of him on his elbows with his head tipped back, and his over-bitten lips open on a continuous pant, settles her in this reality where what they’re doing, what she’s doing to him, feels important and hallowed.

 

_He’s never done this before,_ she thinks, _and I’ve never wanted someone like I want him._

 

Thighs tense and hips twitching in every direction, Andrew slides his left hand through her hair so gently, even as the mason jar on the nightstand begins to crack. She hums around him, taking him in slowly and working her throat to his chorus of cries. _Frannie, Frannie, Frannie._

 

She wants to touch herself, to slide her fingers across her clit until they’re coming together, but her hands are busy right now, and she feels with her whole body the moment he freezes up, and lets out a sharp exhale, and she works him through it as he spasms. The room lights above them burn out. 

 

After a few moments, his back settles against the mattress, and she shimmies up his heaving chest to straddle his hips. He’s looking right at her, eyes blown, cheeks sweaty and flushed, hair wild. If she doesn’t get a hand down her pants, she’s going to lose it. 

 

“I have to —”  she begins, but then she feels one of his hands sliding into her underwear, and she resists the urge to jolt. His eyes are focused, brows furrowed. His fingers slide between her folds and stroke up and down in two long motions. He glances back up at her, eyes shining and unsure, “Tell me what feels good. Please.”

 

Frannie just moans above him, jerking her hips forward and down to grind against his hand. He makes a noise, firming up his hand and rocking back against her, focusing on her clit. She’s going to come ridiculously fast, but she’s not too far gone to notice him cock his head, brow furrowing again, before she feels a soft pressure inside her. Against her g-spot. Even though his fingers aren’t near her entrance. 

 

“Fuck, Andrew,” she groans, dropping forward to plant her hands on his shoulders, “If you’re doing that, please don’t stop.”

 

He doesn’t. 

 

She comes like a tidal wave, fast and quick and absolutely devastating. She bucks her hips several more times before letting out a deep breath of air, collapsing on top of him. 

 

“Was that—” he begins, but he doesn’t finish because she’s pressing enthusiastic kisses to his neck, his face, his nose, laughing because _Holy shit, I think I could walk into battle for Andrew Detmer._

 

“Andrew,” she says, seriously, “that was amazing. I—Honey, I can’t even talk right now.”

 

He smiles, shyly, the edges of his eyes crinkling. She is, once again, struck by the unassuming beauty of him. 

 

“Thank you,” he whispers against her lips. “For everything.”

 

She settles her head in the crook of his neck, reaching down to hold his hand tightly and feeling tears begin to prick her eyes. “Anytime."

 

 


End file.
